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Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Big Big House

Yesterday, I took the kids to the nursery to pick up some plants for our flowerbeds. Now, when we're out and about, we occasionally get comments on the size of our family. It surprises me that after 4 years, there are still comments that catch me off guard. Like the man who said, "It must be like Thanksgiving dinner every night!" I loved that one. Or the librarian we see every week who one day said, "I love seeing you each week with all these children. It reminds me of myself when I was younger. I used to always take the neighborhood kids with me." That one shocked me. After 3 years of seeing the same librarian every week, you think you know someone. lol

Yesterday, at the nursery, the lady who was helping load the plants in the van, said, "I hope you have a big house!"

This one really got my wheels a' turnin'. I wanted to smile really big and say, "Yes, we do. We have 2,000 square feet all to ourselves!" Of course, most people think that's nowhere near enough for a family our size. I mean, the kids share rooms after all. Gasp!! Can you imagine?!

I thought about just asking, "Why??"

Then I thought of saying, "Do you mean by American standards or world standards? Half my children lived in a 8' x 8' hut with their mom and aunt before we adopted them."

But honestly, what do we Americans know about what constitutes a "big" house? We know plenty of families of four living in 6,000 square foot homes. Our next door neighbors, the Joneses (not their real name), moved after they had their first baby, because their house only had 3 bedrooms. Kyle and I got a lot of entertainment from that.

Americans have no concept of wealth or poverty.

Back when we had a house that was only 200 square feet smaller than this one, with 5 less children living it, we had our children share a bedroom. We see value in growing up learning to share. After all, their whole married life will be spent sharing a bedroom. Why do we think they need to have their "own space" now? What is that preparing them for?

When the lady said, "I hope you have a big house!", I simply said, "Big enough." :)

By the world's standards, we are incredibly wealthy. We own our own home. We have two vehicles. We have multiple computers. We have indoor plumbing and electricity. Our roof has never leaked. And we always have food in the fridge. Always.

9 comments:

Bobbi
said...

Ginger, you are SO right on this! We are more blessed than the Enemy would like us to think...espcially considering what any of us truly deserves!I appreciate your time in posting these great reminders of the Truth!Love ya!b

The family we bought our house from, sold it because they were expecting their second child and needed another bedroom. Then we bought it and moved in, it's a 900sq.ft, 2 bedroom house. We have 4 kids, ha! We do plan to add on a dining room and a bedroom, we have to if we want to adopt. We do have 4.25 acres and expect the kids to be outside a lot.

Couldn't agree more. Our house is 1200 sq ft. and we would be more than happy in it for the long term if the state would be OK with it adopting more kids. Alas, they are not and so we will be building a bigger house to accomodate their "demands".

I love this! We had a 1500 sq ft house in Texas, and it actually felt big when we only had one child in it and we didn't have any foster kids. It felt just right when we had 4 kids (that's the most we've had so I don't know about more!). Now, we are in a 1300 sq ft place, with an extra bedroom and again - I look forward to being able to fill that room with a foster child or 2 (or whatever the state will allow) when God's timing is right. I don't understand why so many people feel like their kids all need their own rooms. I have one set of friends with 3 kids, each with their own room. You know where they all sleep? Together in one room - by choice!

We get this a lot! We have four bedrooms and people are shocked that we have all four boys share one room! It is plenty big enough, we could even stick another bunk bed in there, and all they do is sleep in there. However, a lot of people think it is odd that we would "force" the boys to share but in all actuality they want to be in the same room!

Yep! We added a bedroom (turned the formal dining into a room) when we were expecting our fourth. We figured our oldest son wouldn't want to share a room with the baby. Well, he ended up staying in the girls room until the baby was older and sleeping through the night. He HATED being in a room by himself!